Baumann, Hanna; Sayyad, Dareen; Shebeitah, Reema; Hamad, Nawal; Younes, Manar; Assaf, Isra; Harker, Christopher; (2025) A Relational Ethics of Care for Citizen Social Science Research. Institute for Global Prosperity, UCL: London, UK.

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Abstract

This paper considers the entanglement of personal and professional life in community-based research and proposes ways to expand the ethical responsibility of participatory research. The Working Paper does so on the basis of shared reflection on community-based research in the West Bank, carried out between UK and Palestine-based researchers, both before and after October 2023. The team was forced to adapt to a volatile and traumatic context while sustaining collaboration. Joint reflection revealed dynamics relevant for participatory research, especially in conflict-affected contexts. We argue that the professional and simultaneously personal nature of Citizen Social Science requires greater attention and specific practices of care. It relies on researchers’ lived experience. The situations faced by Citizen Social Scientists (CSS) in our case revealed, on the one hand, how their investment and participation in the research process is shaped by their whole selves. The research relies, often in unspoken ways, on Citizen Scientists’ personal motivations, networks, and experiences. At the same time, the research also affects the ‘personal’ realm, including identity, emotions, social relations, and family responsibilities. We highlight in particular the reputational risk that Citizen Scientists’ personal investment in the work bears, as well as the impact on researcher well-being it may have. This understanding of the intertwined nature of the personal and the professional role of the community researcher bears several important implications for how researchers conceive of ethical collaboration and risk management – beyond the confines of institutional protocols. We conclude by proposing a number of principles grounded in this understanding of the personal-professional nexus in participatory research: enabling ongoing dialogue on power dynamics, project design, motivations and emotions; accounting for lay researchers’ community-facing role; as well as providing pastoral support.

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